FOREIGN NEWS Tribune, New York, NY- June 14,1990 CR: A. Huneeus [Reprinted with permission] J. ANTONIO HUNEEUS/ SCIENCE FRONTIERS GREAT SOVIET UFO FLAP OF 1989 CENTERS ON DALNEGORSK CRASH First in a two-part series Several months ago we reported in this column about the well- publicized series of bizarre reports of UFO landings and close encounters with giant aliens in the Russian city of Voronezh, as well as other cases obtained from interviews with Soviet researchers during last fall's International UFO Congress in Frankfurt, Germany. I have obtained a large amount of Soviet UFO data since then from a variety of sources both in the Soviet Union and the United States. I recently completed a lengthy and detailed paper entitled, Red Skies: The Great 1989 UFO Wave In the USSR, to be included in the 1989 Symposium Proceedings of the Mutual UFO Network(MUFON), the world's largest research organization in this field, which will take place next month in Pensacola, Florida. We will publish in this series selected excerpts which contain interesting physical and military evidence. The first one deals with the enigmatic report of the crash of an unknown object in the city of Dalnegorsk on the Pacific coast of the Soviet Union, while the following week we'll report on a recent radar- visual UFO incident which resulted in a military scramble alert by Soviet Air Defense forces. A detailed account of the series of complex UFO events registered in the city of Dalnegorsk during the past four years goes beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, the Dalnegorsk flap should be discussed because it contains some of the most extraordinary physical evidence collected so far anywhere in the world, and also because UFO sightings continue to be reported in this area to this day. Thanks to the assistance of Major (Ret.) Colman won Deviczky, director of the Queens-based ICUFON research group who has extensive contacts in the Soviet Union, this writer has obtained several reports of the Dalnegorsk incidents prepared by one of its principal investigatiors, Valeri Dvuzhilny, head of the Far Eastern Commission on Anomalous Phenomena. Even though the Commission has recorded numerous cases going back to the 1970', it seems the most inportant incident so far was the crash of an unknown object on Dalnegorsk Hill 611 on January 29, 1986, at 7:55 p.m. On that date, according to one of the reports by Dvuzhilny,"residents of the settlements observed a reddish-orange sphere the size of a half moon, which flew from the southwest at 260 degrees. Its altitude was 700-8- - meters. The flight was parallel to the wurface of the Earth, without the angles which are characteristic for meteorites. The witnesses heard absolutely no noises. The calculated speed by chronometer was 15 meters per second. There was no change of direction or of altitude." The object then approached the Izvesrkovaya mountain, or Hill611, which has an elevation of 600 meters and is located at the center of the town. "The object made a dive and went at an angle of 60-70 degrees on the cliff ledge, where it 'fell' and burned for one hour," continues the report. "Some of the witnesses affirm that it rose and lowered itself six times, and that its light was intensified during its rise and weakened during its lowering." Dvuzhilny and his team arrived on the scene February 3, finding a number of physical traces, which included lead and iron balls, bits of glass, a fine mesh or netting, traces of high temperature activity, magnetic anomalies and damage to nearby trees and stumps. The materials have been analyzed by several laboratories from three Soviet academic centers and 11 research institutes. The results, however, have proven to be highly enigmatic, leading Dvuzhilny and other scientists to conclude that the Dalnegorsk object was probably an artificial space probe of non-terestrial origin. According to one report published in the newspaper Socialist Industry, "In the scales [or mesh], almost all the elements of the entire periodic table were found." Spectral analysis of the lead balls, for instance, showed that besides lead, these contained silicon (20 percent), aluminum(10 percent), iron(15 percent), zinc(1.5percent), titanium(2 percent), magnesium(1 percent), and silver(2percent), as well as minute portions of copper, lantanium, praseodymium, calcium, sodium, vanadium, cerium, chrome, cobalt, nickel, and molybdenum. The scales or mesh reacted in a very strange manner during the laboratory analysis. The Socialist Industry report said one of the scientists, A. Makeev, "presented the roentgenological structural analysis and showed that from one scale, after melting it in a vacuum, all of a sudden gold, silver, and nickel disappeared. But there appeared alpha-titanium and molybdenum. In another scale, the metals did not appear at all. And for some reason, after the heating, there appeared beryllium sulphide." There were still further surprises, such as "six areas of magnetized silica rock" (silica is a nonmagnetic material) found on the site. This and other results were published by A. Petukhov and T. Faminskaya, members of the Council of Scientific and Engineering Societies' Commission on Paranormal Events. "Vivid interest was also evoked by the mesh, a carbon-based composite of unknown origin," wrote Petukhov and Faminskaya. "The specimen was found to include quartz filaments 17 microns thick, and golden wires inside each filament." Other anomalous effects included the blackened photos of Hill 611 taken by the researchers, and the biological effects on the researchers themselves. According to Petukhov and Faminskaya, "the researchers working at the site showed changes in their blood (a reduced count of leucocytes and platelets, changes in the structure of erythrocytes) and sensory disturbances." Dvuzhilny described in more detail the medical investigation involving five researchers who spent considerable time at Hill 611, and a control group. All of this led some investigators to conclude that something alien had indeed crashed at Hill 611 V. Vysotsky, Doctor of Chemistry from Vlakivostok, stated: "Undoubtedly, this is a high-technology product and not a thing of natural or terestrial origin." Dvuzhilny proposed that it was "an automatic scout probe" of alien origin, and rejected the altermative hypothesis that it could have been a natural plasmoid. This hypothesis was proposed by a candidate of geological-mineralogical science, V.N. Salnikov. It was summarized by Yuri Rylkin, a phycisist with the Tomsk Poltechnical Institure, in a paper presented at the International UFO Congress in Frankfut in October of 1989. "The Dalnegorsk object," wrote Rylkin, "represents a plasma formation on the base of electromagnetical structure, called plasmoid, whose trajectory passed over geological breaking and parallel to high- voltage electrotransmission line. It is supposed that this plasmoid absorbed selectively some chemical elements, for example, the noble and rare metals. As Salnikov considers, such formations may be formed by litospherical waveguides, or may appear in anomalous stressed geophysical fields mear geological breakings." We'll have more to say about these so-called plasmoids in this series' second part. Still another hypothesis was offered by Yuri Platov, a senior researcher with the Institute if Earth Magnetism, Ionesphere and Radiowave Propagation of the USSR Academy of Sciences and a noted UFO skeptic. Platov maintains that the Dalnegorsk phenomenon "in reality was connected with the conduct of a technical experiment." I have seen no supportive evidence to back that assertion, however. Dvuzhilny responds that there were no rocket launches and no civilian or military traffic over Dalnegorsk on that night. SIGHTINGS CONTINUE Regardless of its ultimate origin, the crash on Hill 611 was only the beginning of an intense UFO flap in Dalnegorsk that continues to this day. For instance, another report by Dvuzhilny indicat6es "on February 6, 1986, eight days after the UFO crash, there appeared from the north two yellow globes at 8:30 p.m. They approached the crash spot, made four circles over it and disappeared with a flash." By and large, however, the largest display of UFOs in the Dalnegorsk and Primorye areas occurred on the night of NOv. 28,1987. Again, according to one of Dvulzhiny's reports, "on Saturday November 28, 1987, 33 UFOs were flying at a low height over the Eastern coast of Primorye. Their flights took place between 9:10 pm and midnight. They were of different shape: cylinders, cigars, globes. They were flying over five regions and twelve settlements. None of the witnesses claimed they had seen UFOs. They thought they saw aircraft crashing. All were wurprised to hear no noise." Inquiries made by Dvuzhilny showed there had been no flights of civil or military aircraft at that time, and that no carrier-rockets had been launched from Soviet cosmodromes. Moreover, continued Dvuzhilny, "the objects observed had nothing in common with the effects of rocket launching that are quite different. They were not like fireballs, ball lightning or plasmoids." Further on, Dvuzhilny added that "out of the 33 UFOs, 13 flew over Dalnegorsk." There were over 100 vitnesses, including military personnel, militia (police), border guards and sailors, as well as all kinds of civilian workers, who were questioned by the Far Eastern Commission. Finally, reports Dvuzhilny, "those objects caused a two minute cutting-off of HF [high frequency] circuits of TV, telegraph and other appliances. Computers were cut off, their programs spoiled. All that was due to powerful electromagnetic fields of UFOs (cover, engines) reaching hundreds and thousamds of KWs." Many other sightings have occurred in Dalnegorsk. According to the Far Eastern Commission, 45 UFOs were registered in 1987, 15 in 1988, 32 in 1989 (up to the month of July). Nor have the sightings been restricted to Dalnegorsk alone. Other cases have been reported near the larger city of Vladivostok. These include a close encounter involving two separate cars on September 17, 1988, where one of the drivers seemed to lose control of his car; and a second, undated, event reported by the Krasnoye Znamia (Red Banner) newspaper, about a whole section of Vladivostok being illuminated between 2 and 4 a. m. by a light beam from an unseen source. Because of the late hour, only a few people who were not asleep observed the phenomenon. Interestingly, similar occurrences of an unknown light beam illuminating a city have been reported a few times in the city of Arica in the northern tip of Chile. --- . Titan|um Knight Mail: titan@sys6626.bison.mb.ca Amiga 1200 - AGA chipset